Florida law<\/a> requires candidates to be registered as a member of the political party from which they seek nomination for a year before the beginning of qualifying for a given General Election.<\/p>\n But candidates have repeatedly skirted those rules, and courts haven\u2019t consistently stopped them.<\/p>\n Tant said that today, it\u2019s \u201cnot clear who has standing to issue a legal challenge\u201d in cases where there is a party affiliation dispute, or where the challenge should come from.<\/p>\n \u201cThis bill is critically necessary to clarify Florida law so that we don\u2019t have any confusion,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n HB 91 \u2014 and its Senate analogue (SB 62<\/a>) by Kissimmee Democratic Sen. Kristen Arrington, which has already cleared two of the three committees to which it was referred \u2014 would require candidates to swear an oath that they have been registered with their political party for at least 365 consecutive days before the qualifying period.<\/p>\n Currently, the oath requires candidates only to promise that they\u2019ve been a member of the party for 365 days, without the \u201cconsecutive\u201d qualifier.<\/p>\n HB 91 would also require no-party candidates to similarly affirm, by oath, that they have not been a member of a political party for at least a year prior.<\/p>\n Vitally, it would provide that challenges to eligibility must be from either qualified opponents in a given election or a state political party with a stake in the race. Challenges would have to be filed in the circuit court for the county in which the qualifying officer is headquartered.<\/p>\n Florida has seen repeated cases of candidates running under a party label they were not legally eligible to claim, despite the state\u2019s requirement that candidates belong to their chosen party for at least a year before qualifying.<\/p>\n In 2022, Florida Politics reported that congressional candidate Curtis Calabrese filed as a Democrat in Florida\u2019s 22nd Congressional District after only two weeks in the party. He later withdrew.<\/p>\n A similar situation<\/a> arose in December 2024 in Florida\u2019s 6th Congressional District.<\/p>\n Other candidates have remained on the ballot despite clear violations, including Wancito Francius, who stayed in the Democratic Primary<\/a> for House District 107 while falling six weeks short of the 365-day requirement.<\/p>\n By then, Florida\u2019s limited enforcement power was well known due to a case involving former COVID dashboard manager Rebekah Jones. A three-Judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal allowed her to stay<\/a> on the 2022 Democratic Primary ballot even though she did not technically qualify.<\/p>\n Judge Scott Makar pointed to a \u201cgap in the statute\u201d and said lawmakers \u201cmay wish to consider implementing a mechanism to decide, early on, the bona fides of a political Primary candidate\u2019s party oath (because) currently one is lacking and requires that political party candidates be taken at their word, which is not likely to be sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n Tant alluded to a perennial candidate, Beulah Farquharson, whom she did not name but described as having \u201cbounced around\u201d Florida in recent years, running for various offices and often switching parties just days before the qualifying date.<\/p>\n Most recently, Farquharson filed in 2024 to run against Madison County Clerk Billy Washington, who appeared at the committee meeting Wednesday to support HB 91. An August 2024 report by the Madison Enterprise Reporter<\/a> said Farquharson, who filed to run as a Democrat, had done so the same day she switched to that party, having previously been registered as a no-party candidate in Osceola County.<\/p>\n Washington sued to remove Farquharson from the ballot, and while the effort eventually proved successful, Tant said, it also took months and cost Washington thousands of dollars in the process.<\/p>\n \u201cOur courts were put through a ridiculous exercise on this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Miami Democratic Rep. Wallace Aristide, who beat Francius and ultimately won the HD 107 seat last year, thanked Tant for sponsoring the bill before speaking briefly about his experience dealing with the opaqueness of the current law.<\/p>\n \u201cWe ran in the race, and somebody was from another party, and it was in contention,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was in the (Miami) Herald<\/a>. It was everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n Tampa Republican Rep. Susan Vald\u00e9s, an ex-Democrat who switched parties<\/a> shortly after winning re-election in December, described HB 91 as an \u201celection integrity bill.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe must follow the rules. And if the rules are that you have to be registered for a year, then that should be it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd by the same token, the challenging of these (issues) should not be spiteful but more so factual, and that date should make that determination.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765413674_99_728x90-LO_Gif1.gif\")
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